Nick Saban, Lane Kiffin and the year that changed Alabama football forever
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Chris Low
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ESPN Senior Writer- College football reporter
- Joined ESPN.com in 2007
- Graduate of the University of Tennessee
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Alex Scarborough
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Former Alabama quarterback Blake Sims can still remember the feeling of that November night back in 2014, when he and the offense were standing on the field in overtime at LSU. With his mind and heart racing, and the roar of the Tiger Stadium crowd ringing in his ears, he shot a glance toward the sideline and Coach Nick Saban.
Less than 24 hours earlier, first-year offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin had come up with the play Sims was about to run — a daring empty set formation in which the offensive tackle, Cam Robinson, would split out wide as a receiver and a 305-pound reserve tight end, Brandon Greene, would masquerade as an offensive lineman.
The play’s name doubled as a sort of warning: Oh S—.
“Oh s—,” Kiffin had warned Sims and the rest of the offense in their team meeting the night before, “if this doesn’t work guys, Coach Saban is going to kill me on national TV.”
No blood was shed. LSU didn’t pick up on the fact that Greene was actually an eligible receiver as he took off down the middle of the field after the snap and hauled in a 24-yard reception on the first play of overtime, leading to a 20-13 Alabama victory.
“We all would have gotten our asses ripped if that play would have gone bad, not just Coach Kiffin,” said Sims. “But that’s the way Coach Kiffin rolls. He wasn’t afraid to take chances, and Coach Saban wasn’t afraid to take a chance on him … and you see what that’s led to.”
Much like that play, the pairing of Saban and Kiffin was high-risk at the time and genius in hindsight. And it has now come full circle, as Kiffin returns to Bryant-Denny Stadium to lead his No. 12 Ole Miss Rebels against Saban’s No. 1 Crimson Tide on Saturday.
But for the full story of how Alabama transitioned from ground-and-pound, game-manager-QB Alabama to high-flying, first-round-QBs-and-Heisman-winning-receiver Alabama, you have to start at the beginning, when the sport’s most accomplished head coach took a chance on the game’s most controversial.
“I remember him saying, ‘I feel like our offense is a Lamborghini, but it’s headed off a cliff,’ meaning we’ve got these great players, but are behind the times in what we’re doing,” said Kiffin, recalling their first meeting after he was hired. “So we needed to change directions.”
When Auburn‘s Chris Davis caught a missed field goal and returned it more than 100 yards for a game-winning score against Alabama in the 2013 Iron Bowl, it did more than dash any hope the Crimson Tide had of winning a third straight national title. It was the final signal to Saban that his program, despite its massive success, was beginning to grow outdated offensively.
While Auburn, Ole Miss and Texas A&M were using tempo and spreading the field with multiple receivers, Alabama was still putting the quarterback under center and still utilizing a mostly pro-style playbook.
Saban, after years of complaining about how the rules were tilted in favor of spread and hurry-up offenses, was eager to play catch-up with what he called the “fastball guys.”
So two weeks after losing to Auburn, an unlikely visitor started popping up at the Alabama practice field.
Center Ryan Kelly barely noticed Kiffin hanging around those few days in mid-December. Former coaches were always coming and going, Kelly explained.
Speaking to reporters, Saban brushed off the importance of Kiffin’s visit. Never mind that Kiffin was one of the most eccentric and divisive figures in college football. The 38-year-old had recently been fired by USC and was only four years removed from bailing on Tennessee after just one season.
Saban said hosting Kiffin was an opportunity for “professional development.”
“Obviously,” Kelly said, “that was the precursor to what was coming.”
Sims, who was a backup at the time but knew Kiffin from his recruitment by Tennessee, was one of the few players who put two and two together.
“I said, ‘We’re about to be deadly, so cold, because I knew what he would do with our offense,” Sims said. “It was the perfect combination, Coach Saban’s structure and Coach Kiffin’s creative mind.”
In the ensuing days, everything came together. Offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier told Sims and the rest of the offense that the Sugar Bowl would be his last game at Alabama. He would eventually land the same job at Michigan.
During a recruiting visit, Saban pulled linebackers coach Lance Thompson into a bathroom for a private conversation. Thompson said Saban told him he had three candidates in mind to replace Nussmeier. One of them was Kiffin, whom Thompson had worked for at Tennessee.
Saban asked Thompson, now the inside linebackers coach at Florida Atlantic, what he thought.
“I’d hire Lane, Coach,” he said. “He’s a special playcaller.”
Thompson then paused for a moment. “But I’m going to tell you,” he said, “he’s different.”
Saban didn’t miss a beat.
“I ain’t never had a problem handling an assistant coach,” he said.
Saban would ultimately hire Kiffin and test his confidence about wrangling wayward assistants. Their personalities were so far apart, Thompson said, “It was like Earth and Neptune.”
Their collision caused fireworks at times, but more importantly, it led to the total re-imagining of Alabama’s offense and the resurrection of Kiffin’s career.
“People think you go there because it’s coaching rehab and you get a head job somewhere else,” Kiffin told ESPN earlier this week. “I guess that’s one way to approach it, and some people do. But for me, I look back at all of the things I learned under [Saban] that made me a better coach despite everything that’s been said about our time together and any differences we might have had.”
There were plenty of skeptics when Saban brought Kiffin on board.
“A lot of people might have been surprised when I brought Lane in as coordinator, probably even here in the building,” Saban told ESPN. “But I wanted to grow on offense. We needed to grow, and I felt like he was the best guy at that time to help us do that.”
But this wouldn’t be a simple course correction. Because while Saban wanted to implement the spread and use more tempo, Kiffin had very little history of doing either. At Tennessee and USC, he had run a similar pro-style attack as Alabama.
“He researched all that stuff and we’d go over it,” Saban said. “… So I was kinda learning it from him, and he was learning it from other people.”
For much of the next two years, Kiffin did his homework on those coaches and teams running up-tempo offenses with run-pass elements (RPOs). He paid careful attention to what his former USC brethren Steve Sarkisian was doing as head coach at Washington, racking up more than 600 total yards of offense in a game five times during the 2013 season.
There were also talks with Tom Herman when he was the offensive coordinator at Ohio State and Doug Meacham at TCU. Kiffin said he remained in touch with Chip Kelly, who was then in the NFL with the Philadelphia Eagles after coaching against Kiffin while at Oregon.
That April, during Kiffin’s first spring at Alabama, the Crimson Tide hosted their annual coaching clinic. There were a few usual suspects, such as former Alabama coaches Gene Stallings and Sylvester Croom, but among the headliners was someone with no ties to the school or Saban: Baylor coach and hurry-up offensive guru Art Briles, who was later fired in response to a review of the school’s handling of sexual assault allegations against students, including several football players.
Thompson said Briles’ attendance was no coincidence.
“There’s not a coach that comes to a clinic that Nick doesn’t sit down with individually and talk to and the coaches on the offensive and defensive side of the ball talk to those guys, too,” Thompson said. “Every coach from another program, every coach that’s brought in for an interview, is brought in for a purpose.”
That purpose: “To gain new information.”
Saban and Kiffin left no stone unturned. In their second year together, no-huddle guru Eric Kiesau was brought in on staff as an offensive analyst. Kiesau, now the receivers coach at Auburn, worked under Sarkisian at Washington and was previously the offensive coordinator at Colorado and passing game coordinator at Cal. He was a valuable sounding board for Kiffin on such things as using the sideline boards that help teams go faster on offense.
Alabama ran what was then a school-record 1,088 offensive plays in 2015 after running 1,018 the year before. The Tide had not run more than 898 plays in a season the previous four years.
“Everybody says that I go through so many guys on offense,” Saban said. “Look, I learn from all of them. We went through a transformation when Lane was here … intentionally. It was intentional. I wanted to, and he wanted to, too, and we’ve continued to build.”
The transition wasn’t seamless, though.
For instance: Kelly remembers how frustrated he was when he found out Kiffin wanted to scrap the traditional way quarterbacks signaled for the snap with a voice command like “hike” in favor of clapping. Kelly said he let it be known to his coaches, “How does this make sense? Like, anybody could be clapping, right?”
“There was give and take,” explained Kelly, who’s in his sixth season with the Indianapolis Colts.
That applied to the staff’s interaction with Kiffin, too.
One time, Kelly recalled, he thought offensive line coach Mario Cristobal was going to lose it on Kiffin.
“He was so close to walking into Lane’s office and strangling him,” Kelly said. “Because they were going out to practice and there were five new plays we hadn’t installed and no one could find Lane.”
Over time, Saban grew increasingly frustrated with what he said was a lack of organization on Kiffin’s part.
“I wanted things done a certain way,” Saban said. “I wanted the coaches to meet. I wanted everybody to have input, and that was not his style. Some of the other coaches complained to me about it, and I always said that Lane would be a much better head coach than an assistant because when you’re a head coach and you know what you want to do and you’ve got organized people around you, you really don’t need to be that organized.”
One assistant on that staff joked: “Lane Kiffin and Nick Saban were a match. It just wasn’t a match made in heaven.”
When Kiffin arrived in Tuscaloosa, Blake Sims was no one’s idea of a record-setting SEC quarterback.
AJ McCarron had just left for the NFL and former Florida State quarterback Jake Coker had transferred in, becoming the odds-on favorite to start.
The coaching staff loved Sims, but if they’re being honest, Thompson said, they were surprised he beat out Coker and started a single game. Even Sims admits he was recruited to Alabama by Kirby Smart to play free safety.
“He’d been Scout Team Player of the Week more than anybody in the history of Alabama football,” Thompson said. “He had played running back, safety, quarterback, wide receiver, fullback, tight end. The kid had played everything. He was such a wonderful kid. And then Lane comes and does a great job giving him stuff that he can do.”
Overnight, Sims transformed into a deft distributor of the football, making the kind of quick decisions that allowed All-America receiver Amari Cooper and others to shine.
That was no accident. Thompson said that during the lead up to the season, Kiffin shortened the terminology of plays, cutting 10-word calls in half in order to make things easier for everyone to understand, and Sims responded by passing for more yards (3,487) than anybody in the history of Alabama football had passed for to that point.
Whereas the year before the playbook was the size of a novel, Kelly said, it was suddenly condensed into a single chapter.
“To see a guy who really before that played kind of a utility role turn into that,” Kelly said of Sims, “that was obviously a lot of Lane’s doing. He figured out, ‘What’s this guy’s strengths and weaknesses? And let’s play those advantages.’ And that’s ultimately what he did the entire time I was there my last two years.”
Sims, who’s now playing for the Spokane Shock in the Indoor Football League, would watch tape with Cooper and running back Kenyan Drake of those Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush USC teams when Kiffin was the Trojans’ offensive coordinator.
“It was always amazing to me how he could see one play on film and know immediately how to attack the defense,” Sims said. “He could be standing on the field and see things nobody else could.”
In the Florida game that 2014 season, Kiffin pulled Sims and Drake aside before the game and devised a play for Drake to split out wide as a receiver and Sims to line up in the shotgun in an empty backfield. On the first play from scrimmage, Drake found himself matched against a linebacker and ran a slant-and-go route for an easy 75-yard touchdown reception.
Kiffin said they had never practiced that “sluggo” route with Drake, but that he had this “weird feeling” that Florida would be in man coverage.
“I thought about it at the last minute and we put it in in the locker room,” said Kiffin, adding that Bush ran that similar play for a long touchdown against Notre Dame in 2004.
Sims said: “You just didn’t see Alabama doing that kind of stuff before, but Coach Kiffin was great at getting those matchups and finding ways to get his best players the ball.”
As a playcaller, Saban said Kiffin is the best he’s ever been around.
“He sees how the defense is playing something and immediately knows,” Saban said, snapping his fingers for emphasis, “what he wants to run against it.”
Saban said it’s overblown how much he and Kiffin sparred that first season when it came to football, and even Kiffin said his former boss is a much better listener than people give him credit for, at least in certain areas.
“On scheme, yes. But not when it comes to the structure of his program,” Kiffin said. “It’s hard to argue that, though. Look at his success.”
Much like the “Oh S—” play against LSU, Kiffin was renowned for coming up with plays, even on the day of the game, which made it seem like sandlot football at times. And yes, he felt the wrath of Saban, but it usually was worth it.
“Some people when you get into a very structured environment like that, and you’re a little bit more of a color-outside-the-lines guy, just sort of conform because they can’t handle the pressure if it doesn’t work,” said one former assistant coach. “But Lane would color outside the lines, and if two things worked and two things didn’t work, it wouldn’t faze him mentally.”
One of the areas where Kiffin and Saban clashed most often that first season came on resting players, especially during practice, and cutting down on their reps later in the season.
“I didn’t win many of those battles,” Kiffin said. “Maybe the only one was with Amari Cooper. He was like a running back that year. He caught 124 passes [a school record]. I just wanted to make sure he still had his legs at the end of the season.”
Saban admits that he’s old-school, but not to the point of being stubborn.
“I’m old-school when it comes to doing things right and being disciplined, all that,” Saban said. “I’m not old-school in the technical aspects of playing the game. There are differences, and I don’t think people get that sometimes.
“So I do listen. I listen a lot, listened to Lane [on Cooper]. That’s how you learn. Now, there are some things I’m just not willing to compromise.”
While there might have been some concession on Cooper and his reps that season, a coach on that staff said Saban is unwavering when it comes to practice.
“That wasn’t going to change, and it hasn’t changed,” the coach said. “And anybody who tells you it has changed is lying. The process is the process, and the way [Saban] develops his football team with practice reps is not changing. It wasn’t Lane’s call. It wasn’t my call. It was Coach Saban’s call.
“Now, do you have the ability to get him to expand what his intent is? Yes. Lane got him to expand his thinking on certain things. But change? No.”
In retrospect, Kiffin admits he might have pressed too hard, too fast, on some things.
“Like a lot of people do with a previous marriage, I look back on my time now with Coach Saban differently,” Kiffin said. “I could have done much better with just, ‘Yes sir,’ no matter what he said. That’s the majority of that building. They say, ‘Yes sir,’ no matter what. I guess my issue was that I wasn’t trained that way. I’d been a head coach and an assistant coach to Pete Carroll for six years. Pete Carroll was not a ‘yes sir’ environment at all. It was more, ‘Bring up whatever ideas you want.'”
The two coaches stood at midfield inside Vaught-Hemingway Stadium after one of the most exciting games last season, Kiffin wearing an Ole Miss powder blue face covering and shaking hands with his former boss, Saban, who was decked out in head-to-toe Alabama gear.
For three-and-a-half quarters, they’d gone back and forth in an old fashioned shootout. The final score: Alabama 63, Ole Miss 48.
“That damn Lane, he said it after they played us last year: ‘Everything I told him for three years, he wrote it down,'” Saban would later say. “He said after the game, ‘I did every one of those things in the game.’
“He had a whole notepad of s— that I said was a problem to defend when we were together, and he said, ‘I did every one of them.'”
The two teams combined for an SEC-record 1,370 yards, and the 647 yards the Rebels churned out were the most ever against the Tide.
It was a brand of football that would have been unrecognizable to Saban and Kiffin when they first joined up.
“We used to recruit against Alabama at USC and Tennessee and would say, ‘You’re a great quarterback. Don’t go there. You’ll be a game manager. You’ll never put up big numbers,'” Kiffin said. “If you were a receiver, we would tell them not to go there. Here’s Julio Jones, one of the greatest of all time, and he never had more than 78 catches, but yet, Amari Cooper had 124.”
In Kiffin’s three years in Tuscaloosa, the Tide went 40-4 with three College Football Playoff appearances and one national title.
Of course, Kiffin didn’t make it to Alabama’s national title game that third year, having been dismissed by Saban earlier in the week. Kiffin had taken the head job with Florida Atlantic, and Saban felt he wasn’t paying enough attention to his Alabama job after the Tide scored just two offensive touchdowns and freshman quarterback Jalen Hurts threw for just 57 yards in a 24-7 national semifinal win over Washington.
“You look back and see where you were at fault and what I could have done better,” Kiffin said. “Now I find myself, which is like a kid saying and doing the same things his parents did, sounding a lot like Coach Saban.”
When Kiffin left, Alabama’s offense only got scarier under future offensive coordinators Mike Locksley and Sarkisian. The program produced first-round quarterbacks like Tua Tagovailoa and Mac Jones, who put up record-setting numbers when throwing to game-breaking, first-round receivers like Jerry Jeudy, Henry Ruggs III, Jaylen Waddle and last year’s Heisman winner, DeVonta Smith.
As one longtime staffer said, “There’s a narrative out there that the Alabama offense exploded under Lane, and he was a big part of where it is now. But the explosion came under Locks and Sark. Just look at the numbers over the last few years.”
Alabama has finished in the top three in scoring offense each of the past three years and sixth or better in both total offense and passing offense the past three years. Of course, it has done it with three straight quarterbacks drafted in the first round and nine running backs, receivers or tight ends selected in the first three rounds of the past four drafts.
Most in and around the program at that time also agree that Kiffin’s offenses helped to attract more elite skill people.
“I do feel like the numbers we put up and what we started to do on offense made it more attractive for offensive skill players to come from all over the country because they always got great defensive players,” Kiffin said.
Just look at Alabama’s current quarterback: Bryce Young, a former five-star prospect from California. Young’s father said they didn’t take Alabama seriously as a destination until they saw the offense begin to open up with Tagovailoa at quarterback. Young’s top receivers are John Metchie III, who is from Canada, and Jameson Williams, a Missouri native who transferred from Ohio State.
Kiffin enters Saturday’s matchup with another another California quarterback, Matt Corral, who is lighting up the scoreboards with 14 touchdowns in three games and is the new Heisman front-runner.
Ole Miss leads the country in scoring offense (52.7 points per game) and total offense (638.3 yards per game), while Alabama isn’t far behind with 46.5 points per game.
And now Kiffin has a chance to make good on an old promise when he returns to Tuscaloosa for the first time as an opposing head coach since 2009, his lone year at Tennessee. After the Vols pushed the Tide to the brink before losing, 12-10, the cocky young Kiffin met Saban at midfield.
“Good game, but we’ll get you the next time.”
With less than three weeks to go before the All-Star break, the Guardians have made their top-three debut.
Cleveland, winners of seven of its last eight games, took a series in Baltimore to leapfrog the dominant Orioles, as well as the Dodgers, in our power rankings. Meanwhile, the Phillies took back the No. 1 spot from the Yankees, the Red Sox broke into the top 10 and the Blue Jays have continued their slide all the way down to 25th on our list.
What will the final few weeks of the first half bring?
Our expert panel has combined to rank every team in baseball based on a combination of what we’ve seen so far and what we already knew going into the 162-game marathon that is a full baseball season. We also asked ESPN MLB experts David Schoenfield, Bradford Doolittle, Jesse Rogers, Buster Olney and Jorge Castillo to weigh in with observations for all 30 teams.
Record: 53-27
Previous ranking: 2
The Phillies agreed to a four-year extension with Cristopher Sanchez that includes team options for 2029 and 2030. The deal guarantees Sanchez $22.5 million with the two options worth at least $14 and $15 million. Not bad for a pitcher not even guaranteed a rotation spot entering last offseason. Remember, the Phillies pursued Yoshinobu Yamamoto, which would have likely bumped Sanchez out of the rotation. Instead, he has a 2.67 ERA and has allowed just one home run in 84⅓ innings. — Schoenfield
Record: 52-30
Previous ranking: 1
It has been a rough few weeks for the Yankees after a smooth two months. Injury scares to Juan Soto and Aaron Judge. Significant injuries to Anthony Rizzo, Giancarlo Stanton and top prospect Jasson Dominguez. Several bullpen moves — a few by choice to improve the group, a few due to injury. But the most alarming development has been the starting rotation’s recent struggles.
Carlos Rodon has been rocked in his past two starts. Luis Gil was knocked out in the second inning last week. And on Tuesday, Gerrit Cole faltered in his second start of the season. The reigning American League Cy Young Award winner gave up six runs on seven hits (four home runs), walked four and didn’t record a strikeout in four innings. The Yankees have built too much of a cushion to fumble away a playoff spot, but they’ll need the starting rotation back on track to beat Baltimore for the division. — Castillo
Record: 51-27
Previous ranking: 5
With their seventh straight win Tuesday, the Guardians improved their winning percentage to .662 — best in the majors. (After Wednesday’s loss, however, they’re now one game being the Phillies for best record in MLB.) Cleveland has finished with the best record in the majors six times in franchise history: 2007 (tied with Boston at 96 wins), 1996 (99 wins), 1995 (100 wins in a 144-game season), 1954 (111 wins), 1948 (97 wins) and 1920 (98 wins). Leading the way is Steven Kwan, who is finally qualified for the batting title and hitting .377 (best in MLB) with more walks than strikeouts. OK, he probably won’t hit .377 all season, but the last Cleveland player to hit .350 was Manny Ramirez in 2000 (.351), and the last to hit .360 was Earl Averill in 1936 (.378). — Schoenfield
Record: 50-30
Previous ranking: 3
The Orioles rolled through the Bronx last week, taking two of three from the first-place Yankees to move within a half-game in the AL East race. The positive momentum ended there. Baltimore was swept out of Houston over the weekend before losing two of three games to the Guardians to start this week. The offense had combined for four runs in a three-game stretch before bouncing back to score eight and four runs in their last two games, but the starting pitching has been the more pressing issue. Orioles starters have combined for a 6.56 ERA and 1.63 WHIP over 46⅔ innings in the past nine games. The struggles coincide with Kyle Bradish undergoing Tommy John surgery after John Means and Tyler Wells were lost for the season last month. The depth behind ace Corbin Burnes is a huge question mark. — Castillo
Record: 51-31
Previous ranking: 4
We know this about Andrew Friedman, the head of baseball operations for the Dodgers — he’s going to do something at the trade deadline. He has added stars such as Manny Machado and Yu Darvish in the past, and in other years, it has been lesser names. But he always does something. So it’s go time for some of the struggling players on their roster. The Dodgers have waited for Gavin Lux, believing in his talent, and he has had some good days recently. Chris Taylor has been throwing out hits lately, which is good timing. Friedman will soon evaluate and fix his roster. — Olney
Record: 48-33
Previous ranking: 6
Should Willy Adames get some MVP votes? It sounds wild for a .238 hitter who has an OPS under .800 and isn’t among the leaders in WAR, but the award shouldn’t just be about stats. Adames is the heart and soul of a Brewers team that has been in first place all year long. But if you want stats, how about this one: His batting average in games deemed late and close is .308, while his OPS is .852. That sounds a little more MVPish, right? He also has a whopping nine multirun home runs. Remember, the MVP ballot has 10 spots. There are more absurd things than giving Adames a bottom-five vote. — Rogers
Record: 44-34
Previous ranking: 8
Heading into Wednesday’s doubleheader against St. Louis (which they ended up splitting), the Braves were 24-26 since April 29, an extended streak of mediocrity following a 19-7 start. The offense had an .801 OPS those first 26 games but hit .226 with a .671 OPS over those next 50. The pitching has remained consistent: 3.62 ERA over those first 26 games, 3.58 in the 50 following. One bright spot is Austin Riley is finally starting to look like the Riley of the past three seasons, hitting .441 with five home runs over a recent 10-game stretch. — Schoenfield
Record: 43-37
Previous ranking: 11
Jarren Duran spent last season bouncing between Triple-A and the majors as the Red Sox limped to their second straight 78-84 record. This season, he has solidified himself as a cornerstone and potential All-Star for a club unexpectedly in possession of a wild-card spot in late June. Buoyed by his elite speed, the 27-year-old outfielder is slashing .288/.351/.480 with seven home runs and 20 steals. He leads the majors in triples and is tied for the AL lead in doubles while being among the top outfielders across the sport in defensive runs saved. He ranks 11th in fWAR. In short, he has been one of the most complete players in baseball in 2024. — Castillo
Record: 46-37
Previous ranking: 7
On June 18, the Mariners beat fellow AL front-runner Cleveland to begin a nine-game road trip. That pushed Seattle’s mark to a season-best 13 games over .500 and extended its lead in the AL West to a whopping 10 games. Order your playoff tickets now! Seattle still leads the division, but its lead over the Astros has fallen by more than half since that very recent apex. Suffice to say, it has been a long road trip for Seattle, literally and figuratively.
In general, the Mariners have struggled away from home all season, especially in run prevention. Well, they haven’t really hit anywhere, but the pitching has fallen off badly away from T-Mobile Park. Seattle has a 2.54 ERA while going 27-12 at home but is 19-25 on the road with a bloated ERA of 4.55. — Doolittle
Record: 44-36
Previous ranking: 10
Royce Lewis just keeps on hitting. The 25-year-old third baseman is batting .311 with 10 home runs and a 1.138 OPS in 20 games. After an 0-fer game last week, Lewis told reporters, “I don’t do that slump thing.” He wasn’t lying. He went out and posted a three-hit game the next day. He has at least one hit in all but five games he’s played this season and has rarely had consecutive hitless games in his major league career, though he’s hitless in his past three games. For the most part, hitting comes easy for him. Staying on the field has been the problem. If he does that, the Twins will have a superstar fueling a dangerous lineup in October. — Castillo
Record: 44-38
Previous ranking: 9
With the Royals’ playoff probabilities shrinking rapidly, president of baseball operations J.J. Picollo and his staff have amped up their aggression with the roster. Struggling slugger Nelson Velasquez was demoted when spark plug Michael Massey came off the IL, and a reshaping of the flailing bullpen seems to be underway. In the minors, lefty Kris Bubic was shifted to the bullpen for the duration of his rehab assignment for Omaha. The Royals also signed veteran Jesus Tinoco to a minor league deal, though that signing is more of a flier than anything. The Royals haven’t been terribly proactive when it comes to churning the last few spots of their 40-man roster, so hopefully this spate of activity is not arriving too late for a team still in the playoff hunt — if the bleeding can be stopped. — Doolittle
Record: 44-41
Previous ranking: 12
The National League mud bog of wild-card contenders is, for now, a messy race of 10 teams vying for two spots. You could make a reasonable case for each of the clubs, including the Nationals, but interestingly, many executives echo a similar sentiment as they assess what they see: The Padres should be the best team in this group of wild-card wannabes.
“There’s just a talent there,” one high-ranking official said of San Diego last week. “They’ve got starting rotation problems, but with [the quality of] their position players, they should win a spot. Nobody can hit — but [the Padres] can hit.” — Olney
Record: 40-40
Previous ranking: 15
All those who were ready to pop a cork over the demise of the Houston dynasty had better keep that bubbly on ice, because the Astros aren’t done yet. Last week, we noted that despite the urgency generated by their glacial beginning, the Astros still had not been able to reel off a sustained winning streak. Almost certainly motivated by that exact power rankings-related commentary, they proceeded to reel off a sustained winning streak. With the Mariners and Royals stumbling at the same time, Houston is — as ever — very much in the AL West title picture and looms in the league’s wild-card race. Better check to see if that champagne has a return policy. — Doolittle
Record: 41-38
Previous ranking: 16
The Cardinals’ run up the standings is looking more and more real thanks to a pitching staff that continues to overachieve. Of course, St. Louis might disagree with that description, but honestly, who saw this coming? The Cards rank fourth in ERA over the past month as, all of a sudden, Kyle Gibson has found the fountain of youth, Miles Mikolas has stopped giving up more hits than innings pitched and reliever Ryan Fernandez has turned into a monster on the mound. It doesn’t hurt when your closer goes 10-for-10 in save opportunities during that time frame as well. Plus, there’s still room for improvement, so it’s not like the Cardinals are necessarily peaking and will fall back. They’ve been impressive since their slow start and deserve credit for it. — Rogers
Record: 39-41
Previous ranking: 13
The worst of Corbin Carroll‘s sophomore slump is seemingly behind him. Through May 28, Carroll was batting .184 with a .279 slugging percentage. Since then, he’s hitting .286 and slugging .396 with a .387 OBP. He’s also contributing to the Arizona offense by getting on base and stymieing defenses with his speed; he’s scored 22 runs in his past 26 games. For now, however, his power has abandoned him — his last home run came on May 7. There is more work to be done in what has been a learning experience for the 23-year-old. — Olney
Record: 39-39
Previous ranking: 17
Mark Vientos has been up and down between the Mets and Triple-A the past two seasons, including playing 31 games this season for Syracuse. He was recalled for a second time in 2024 on May 15 when Joey Wendle was designated for assignment, and he’s taken advantage of that opportunity. Vientos had back-to-back three-hit games last week against the Rangers and homered twice off Gerrit Cole on Tuesday. He’s still just 24 years old, and his rookie numbers so far don’t look all that different from the rate stats Pete Alonso put up at the same age in 2019. Vientos has been playing third base and while defense isn’t his strong suit, he’s certainly surpassed Brett Baty as the third baseman of the future (or maybe he’s a possible replacement for Alonso at first base, if Alonso doesn’t re-sign as a free agent). — Schoenfield
Record: 37-43
Previous ranking: 18
If the Rangers are able to crawl back into the postseason race, an unsung hero of their survival quest will be utility player Josh H. Smith. We’re including the middle initial (the “H” is for Harris) because he’s actually the third Josh Smith to play in the majors in the past decade. Josh H. has flourished during the absence of injured third baseman Josh Jung, whose recovery from a wrist injury may have hit a snag this week when some soreness cropped up during his rehab.
Smith has hit .294/.389/.462 this season, giving him a robust 144 OPS+. He’s literally put his body on the line: Smith is tied for the MLB lead by getting plunked 12 times already. According to baseball-reference.com, on a team led by superstars like Corey Seager, Marcus Semien and Adolis Garcia, it’s Smith who leads the way in runs created and WAR. — Doolittle
Record: 40-41
Previous ranking: 25
The Rays have surged lately after falling a season-high five games under .500 on June 18. Yandy Diaz is a significant reason for this. The first baseman was batting .243 with a .661 OPS through May after hitting .330 to win the AL batting crown and making the All-Star team last season. Díaz has resembled that 2023 version of himself so far in June, slashing .343/.365/.500 with three home runs in 23 games. He has recorded hits in 22 of the 23 games and multiple hits in five of the past seven games. The Rays, coincidentally, have won six of their past eight games to sneak back into the fringe of the wild-card race. Maybe they won’t be subtracting at the deadline after all. — Castillo
Record: 37-43
Previous ranking: 19
Jonathan India is finally heating up. A team leader and basically the elder statesman of the infielders (along with Jeimer Candelario) even though he’s only 27, India was 10-for-17 over the past seven days (ending Tuesday) while compiling a 1.741 OPS — the highest in baseball over that time frame. Six of his hits went for extra bases, as his timing has been right on the money. He hasn’t flashed the same kind of power that he showed in 2021, but his current OPS+ is in line with that season, when he was the Rookie of the Year. Cincinnati has been looking for an offensive spark outside of Elly De La Cruz — and India may be it. — Rogers
Record: 38-42
Previous ranking: 20
The Nationals have a new rival after all the fireworks involving Jurickson Profar on Monday and Tuesday. Unfortunately, the Nationals lost both games, with Profar hitting a walk-off single in the 10th inning Monday. That followed a walk-off loss Saturday against the Rockies, when Colorado scored once in the eighth and twice in the ninth to win 8-7. Kyle Finnegan and Hunter Harvey have been clutch at the back end of the bullpen, but Harvey factored into both losses and Finnegan was given the loss Saturday. — Schoenfield
Record: 37-43
Previous ranking: 22
Jack Flaherty‘s decision to take a one-year deal with the Tigers was a bet on himself — and it may pay off in a big way. Flaherty has been dominant, with 108 strikeouts in 83⅓ innings — easily the best whiff rate of his career — but more importantly, he’s absorbing innings, averaging six per start. He’s been so good that if the Tigers kept him through this season, they could justify giving him a qualifying offer of close to $20 million. But for now, the industry wonders: Will he get traded? — Olney
Record: 39-41
Previous ranking: 24
Should the Pirates subtract from their roster at the trade deadline or add? Their owner says they want to make a playoff push, but with their top pitchers being so young, some insiders say a postseason berth is more likely next year than this one. The simple thinking is the team should take it easy on young phenoms Jared Jones and Paul Skenes while building up their stamina for future playoff runs. However, with the NL so bunched, it might be a wasted opportunity to stand still. The next month of baseball will decide the course for Pittsburgh. — Rogers
Record: 37-44
Previous ranking: 23
Normally, when a team has a good starting staff, it leads to a good season. But the Cubs are the rare case in which that’s not happening, mostly due to the rest of their game being problematic. The team has squandered more runs than is acceptable on the bases, played less than expected defense, slugged a lot less than last year and last, but certainly not least, they’ve blown all sorts of late-inning leads, including another ninth-inning meltdown Monday in San Francisco. That one ended on a walk-off walk issued by Drew Smyly, who nibbled his way into a bad loss. There have been many of them for Chicago this season. — Rogers
Record: 39-42
Previous ranking: 14
In recent years, you could’ve reasonably faulted the effort of the Giants’ front office. But last winter, San Francisco was a big spender, scooping up unsigned stars throughout the winter, from Jorge Soler to Blake Snell to Matt Chapman. And yet nothing has really changed. We’re halfway through the season, and the highest batting average for any qualified hitter on their roster is .234 (Thairo Estrada and Chapman). Heliot Ramos leads the team in home runs with 10. Chapman has the highest on-base percentage at .314. The Giants fired manager Gabe Kapler after a 79-win season last year, and at present, they are on a trajectory to win 76-78 games under Bob Melvin. — Olney
Record: 36-43
Previous ranking: 21
Orelvis Martinez‘s career was flipped upside down over the weekend. On Friday, after being called up to replace the injured Bo Bichette on the Blue Jays’ roster, the organization’s No. 2 prospect made his major league debut and registered his first hit. On Sunday, Martinez was suspended 80 games after testing positive for a performance-enhancing drug. The Blue Jays, meanwhile, lost their sixth straight game that day. It was a fitting week for Toronto, a club with playoff expectations now closer to the floundering Angels in the standings than the third wild-card spot. This team could look very different come August. — Castillo
Record: 33-46
Previous ranking: 26
Starting pitching will be in high demand on the trade market between now and the end of the deadline. Unfortunately for the Angels, we can cross one name off the list of potential targets: lefty Patrick Sandoval. His season is over because of a serious elbow injury that will require surgery. Sandoval was 2-8 with a 5.08 ERA, continuing a career in which he’s struggled to establish a firm foothold as rotation stalwart. During the three years from 2021 through 2023, he posted a 3.53 ERA (122 ERA+) while averaging 127 innings per season. It’s not prime Chuck Finley, but in 2024, those numbers will play. Nevertheless — and say what you want about pitcher records — Sandoval is 27 years old and has 19 career wins and a 19-45 mark despite a 108 career ERA+. Now, the bad luck has gotten worse. — Doolittle
Record: 29-54
Previous ranking: 27
And then there were none. Maybe. Oakland designated veteran reliever Aaron Brooks for assignment on June 25, ending the righty’s stay in the majors for now. If he doesn’t land another big league job, it will end a nearly two-decade reign for Aaron Brooks in American major league sports that has spanned the NFL, NBA and MLB. They weren’t all the same guy, of course, but the name — Aaron Brooks — has quarterbacked the New Orleans Saints (2000 to 2006), played point guard for various NBA teams (2007 to 2018) and operated out of big league bullpens for four teams (2014 to present). Can it really be over? — Doolittle
Record: 28-52
Previous ranking: 29
It somehow just keeps getting worse for the Marlins, as they recently transferred Jesus Luzardo from the 15-day IL to the 60-day IL with a lumbar stress reaction (so take him off those trade rumor lists). The IL for the Marlins now includes starting pitchers Luzardo, Sandy Alcantara, Braxton Garrett, Ryan Weathers, Edward Cabrera, Eury Perez and Sixto Sanchez. They’ve used 13 different starters but somehow rank 28th in the majors in rotation ERA instead of last. With a 5.01 rotation ERA, they should avoid the franchise worst of 5.58 in 2007. Despite that, the Marlins still managed to win consecutive series against the Cardinals and Mariners (including three straight walk-off wins). — Schoenfield
Record: 27-53
Previous ranking: 28
If we were to draw up a list of the best fans in major league baseball, the Rockies’ faithful would have to be in the conversation. Think about what they’ve signed up for. This is a franchise that has posted a winning record just twice in the past 14 seasons — and yet, Colorado fans consistently turn out in the range of 30,000 a game. Their loyalty to the sport seems to be the only sure thing about the organization’s future. — Olney
Record: 21-61
Previous ranking: 30
We’ve written about Garrett Crochet a few times in this space, but he deserves even more recognition after yet another stellar performance — this time against the mighty Dodgers. Granted, it was sans Mookie Betts, but Crochet mowed through them like it was his own lineup of last-place hitters. He only pitched 5⅔ innings, but that’s because the White Sox are taking it easy on him in his first year as a starter and with the trade deadline approaching — but he was extremely effective while in there. He gave up five hits without issuing a walk while striking out six. He continues to lead the AL in K’s — he’s up to 130 now — and he leads the majors with 17 starts. Teams should be lining up for his services next month. — Rogers
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Eli Lederman, ESPN
As college football settles into the summer recruiting dead period, the quarterback market for the 2025 cycle is largely settled, from elite prospects such as LSU pledge Bryce Underwood, USC commit Julian Lewis and Ohio State-bound passer Tavien St. Clair down to the top Group of 5 commits, including Memphis’ Antwann Hill and Georgia Southern’s Charlie Johnston.
All told, of the 83 quarterbacks ranked across ESPN’s pocket passer and dual-threat quarterbacks rankings, just seven remained uncommitted as of Wednesday morning. Across the 67 Power 4 programs plus Notre Dame, all but eight have at least one quarterback committed in the 2025 class.
While most of the nation’s top schools have their next quarterback additions, scarcity at the sport’s most important position yields demand for the select Power 4 and remaining Group of 5 programs still hunting for a signal-caller in the 2025 class. As such, the statuses of the top remaining uncommitted quarterbacks carve some of the most fascinating ongoing storylines across the recruiting landscape this summer.
Who will gain the pledge of four-star quarterback Malik Washington, the last uncommitted top-300 quarterback in the 2025 class? Where will three-star lefty Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele land after his breakout performance at the Elite 11 Finals? What opportunities are out there for dual-threat passer Chris Jimerson Jr. following his decommitment from TCU?
As the recruiting cycle nears July, we dive into those questions and the state of the rest of the quarterback market with just over five months to go before the early signing period opens.
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Rachel Doerrie, ESPN
Draft weekend is upon us! Two days from now, more than 200 players will have their rights selected by NHL teams with the hopes of lifting Lord Stanley’s Cup in the future. Teams will draft those players hoping they become key cogs on a contending team. There is plenty of intrigue heading into Friday night’s first round (7 p.m. ET, ESPN/ESPN+) outside of the first pick — the Celebrini name bar is all but stitched to the back of a San Jose Sharks jersey.
With Matvei Michkov coming over to North America sooner than expected, surely that bodes well for Ivan Demidov’s hopes of going second overall? And in what order do the defensemen get picked? Who are the biggest risers and fallers? How many trades will be made by Friday evening? Which team will go off the board?
There are so many questions heading into the draft, and only one thing is certain: There will be surprises.
The mock draft vastly differs from the Big Board. The latter is a pure ranking of players based on model outputs, viewings, industry intel and other factors. This close to the draft, the mock is what industry knowledge tells us might happen on Friday night in Las Vegas. Teams have varying lists every draft, but this year more than I can remember, the variance is staggering. A few teams have players in their top five that other teams have in the late teens. Truly, this comes down to how each team feels about each player.
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